Blended Learning in English Language Teaching: Course Design and Implementation

■■ Cambridge ESOL was reporting significant demand for a more flexible version
of CELTA.
■■ Other teaching awards were already deliverable fully online or in a blended format,
such as the Distance DELTA.
The new blended programme would help consolidate Cambridge ESOL’s competitive
advantage over other English Language Teaching (ELT) awarding bodies and
reinforce CELTA’s status as the qualification of choice, by bringing CELTA firmly
into the technological age and by reaching candidates in geographical areas not
previously provided for. The blended CELTA would introduce new ELT professionals
to online learning, empowering them to take advantage of other online courses and
educational technology in their continued professional development. The principles
behind this project have been outlined in the literature on blended learning:
1. Most writers on the subject, Garrison and Vaughan (2011), for example, describe
blended learning as combining the best of face-to-face and online approaches,
achieving coherence by integrating the strengths of both. Sharma and Barrett
contribute that it is ‘potentially greater than the sum of its parts’ (2007: 7) while
Bersin comments that blended courses ‘extend the classroom “people-centric”
experience in space and time’ (2004: 12). In the words of Thorne: ‘it represents
an opportunity to integrate the innovative and technological advantages offered
by online learning with the interaction and participation offered in the best of
traditional learning’ (2003: 2).
2. Glazer notes in broad terms that blended learning supports many of us who are
already embracing technology and leading ‘blended lives’ (2012: 1). Increasingly
ELT is involved and in tune with technology and course participants will find they
have the opportunity to experiment with computer-mediated communication and
virtual learning environments in their own teaching post-CELTA.
3. There is emphasis on exploitation of readily-available technology, Littlejohn and
Pegler, for example, writing: ‘Blended e-learning offers the possibility of changing
our attitudes not only as to where and when learning takes place, but in terms of
what resources and tools can support learning and the ways in which these might
be used.’ (2007: 2). Hofmann adds that with blended learning, institutions and
individuals can minimise costs, maximise technology and increase instructional
value: ‘The tools are in place to support blended learning’ (2011: 2) and ‘there is
a push to take advantage’ of resources already invested in technology’ (ibid. p.1).
Bonk and Graham (2006) also refer to the cost advantages, stating that blended
learning opens up the possibility of running courses with a small number of
participants.
4. Glazer focuses on another efficiency benefit: ‘blended learning creates time’
(2012: 4), echoing the point made by Sharma and Barrett that course participants
can ‘continue working and take a course’ (2007: 7).
5. Sharma and Barrett also make the point that ‘the use of technology outside the
classroom can make learners more autonomous’ (ibid. 11) and this is something
beneficial for a CELTA trainee, both for the tutors and for trainees themselves,
112 | The Cambridge CELTA course online